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"One by one I circled them off, my eyes darting back and forth from the envelope to my ticket. When I got to the end I thought, "Crikey, there they all are!"

Wide-eyed and shaking his head in disbelief, the winner didn't know what to do next. He had just won Powerball First Division.

"My mind was racing and I had all this energy — I just didn't know what to do with myself. I thought, 'Who should I ring? What should I do now?'

"Then I thought 'No, just settle down, there is nothing you need to do right now, just wait until everything is confirmed'."

Wanting to return to his lucky store and surprise the owner, the winner waited until later in the week to claim his winnings.

"I hadn't been nervous up until that point and when I was driving there I had butterflies in my stomach," said the winner.

"When I walked in I said to the owner, Belinda, 'can I see you out the back?' and she looked at me and said 'It's you isn't it!' with a big grin on her face — she was just as excited as I was!"

With the winnings now safely tucked away in his bank, the man is taking time to think about his next move.

"It's absolutely overwhelming and I don't really understand it yet.

"I feel really fortunate. This win means that I can do things I couldn't normally even think about."

"What I do know is that I want to help loved ones and donate to a few rescue services. I was rescued once — so it's important to me to give back," said the winner.

The $5.5 million winning ticket was sold at Greerton Lotto in Tauranga for the Lotto draw on Saturday 2 December. The prize is made up of $500,000 from Lotto First Division and $5 million from Powerball First Division.

GREERTON LOTTO STORE

Greerton Lotto in Tauranga is the "luckiest" Lotto store in the Bay of Plenty and sixth equal "luckiest" in New Zealand.

This is the third Powerball winning ticket sold at Greerton Lotto. Two players won $4 million each with tickets bought at Greerton Lotto in February 2015 and September 2015.